The Origin of Yahweh-Worship in Israel: II

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THE ORIGIN OF YAHWEH- WORSHIP IN ISRAEL

PROFESSOR LEWIS BAYLES PATON, PH.D.
Hartford Theological Seminary, Hartford, Conn.

The Source of the Worship

In the August issue of the Biblical World I showed that there are
two traditions in regard to the time when the worship of Yahweh
was introduced into Israel. One dates it from the days of Moses;
the other, from the days of the antediluvian patriarchs. The his-
torical evidence is all in favor of the first of these traditions; and,
consequently, we are confronted with the further question : Whence
did Moses derive the worship of Yahweh ?

I. The theory has been advocated that Yahweh was a new
name given by God through Moses to express a new conception of
his character. Thus Riehm 1 remarks:

Through the self -revelation of God to Moses, together with his deed of redemp-
tion in the release from Egypt, the whole God-consciousness of Israel wins a
richer content and a new form. The most characteristic expression for this is
the new personal designation of the God of Israel, the pure Hebrew name, Yah-
weh, formed from the imperfect of hawah=hayah (poetically abbreviated Yah),
which according to the older tradition first came into use in the time of Moses.

Marti 2 seems to hold a similar view when he says:

We are compelled to give up the idea of foreign influences and to ask whether

through his own reflection Moses came to his high knowledge The oldest

sources J and E in Exod. 3 give another explanation of the origin of Yahweh wor-
ship: God revealed himself to Moses, and informed him of his will in regard
to the Israelites.

The reasons that these critics give for their view are not con-
clusive. E and P do not assert that the name Yahweh was unknown
until it was revealed to Moses, but only that it was unknown to the
forefathers of Israel. If Yahweh were the god of Sinai or the god
of some other nation, the language of E in Exod. 3 : 10-15 an d of P in
Exod. 6:2 f. would still be intelligible. The documents, no doubt,

1 Alttestamentliche Theologie (1889), p. 59.

2 Geschichte der israelitischen Religion (1897), p. 57.

"3

114 THE BIBLICAL WORLD

assert that Yahweh revealed himself to Moses, but they nowhere
claim that he was previously an unknown god. Moses may even
have put a new interpretation upon his name, and yet the name
itself may have been ancient. The theory that Yahweh-worship
originated with Moses is open to the following objections:

i. There is no other case in history where a reformer has preached
an absolutely new god. Either he has brought a new conception of
a god already honored, or he has raised to eminence a god hitherto
obscure, or he has proclaimed the god of another nation; but he
has never invented a new god with a new name. Even Jesus did not
coin a new name for God, but contented himself with the names
already used in the Old Testament. It is very unlikely, therefore,
that Moses originated the name Yahweh. Granted that it was
unknown in Israel before his time, it must have been in use in some
other tribe, and have been adopted by him as the vehicle for his
new conception of God.

2. There is considerable evidence that Yahweh was known to
other ancient peoples besides Israel. Delitzsch and other Assyriologists
believe that the name occurs in documents of the first dynasty of
Babylon (ca. 2300-2200 B. C.). This claim is disputed, so that it
is better not to press the argument. Other evidence is clearer. A
son of the king of Hamath in the time of David bore the name Yoram
(Joram). This is certainly a compound with Yahweh. Three hun-
dred years later a king of Hamath mentioned in the annals of Sargon,
King of Assyria, bore the name of Ya-ubi'di, which is paraphrased
elsewhere as Ilu-ubi'di. This also is unquestionably a Yahweh
compound. In 739 B. C. Tiglath-Pileser III fought against a cer-
tain Azriyau (Azariah), king of Ya'udi, whose capital was Kullani
in northern Syria. This name is a Yahweh-compound of a familiar
Hebrew type. Tobiah and Jehohanan, the Ammonites, mentioned
in Neh. 4:3; 6:18, bear Yahweh-names. In all these cases it is
arbitrary to assume that these theophorous names are due to a spread
of the Hebrew religion in foreign countries. Of proselyting before
the exile there is not the slightest evidence. It is more likely that
Yahweh was known to other Semitic peoples besides Israel. In that
case his new name cannot have originated with Moses, but must
have been borrowed from other sources outside of Israel.

THE ORIGIN OF YAHWEH-WORSHIP IN ISRAEL 115

3. The form Yahweh is not Hebrew, and is unintelligible to
Hebrew ears. The interpretation "He will be" is artificial, since in
Hebrew this would be Yihyeh. The fact that all the documents
find it necessary to explain it, suggests that it was not of Hebrew
origin, but was borrowed from some other language and subsequently
fitted with a Hebrew etymology.

II. The Indo-European origin of Yahweh has been advocated
by Von Bohlen,* Vatke/ J. G. Muller, 5 and Hitzig. 6 The first three
of these critics suggest that Jave, Jaho, and Jao, the forms under
which Yahweh appears in Jewish and early Christian writings, are
connected with Jove and similar names in Indo-European dialects.
As a matter of fact, Jove is derived from the root div, which has no
phonetic connection with Yahweh, and Yahweh is a normal formation
of a familiar Semitic root; there is no reason, therefore, to suspect
a borrowing of this name from an Indo-European source. Theories
of linguistic affiliation between Semitic and Indo-European are now
generally abandoned.

Hitzig refrains from tracing an etymological connection between
Yahweh and Indo-European, but suggests that the idea expressed
is derived from the Armenian name of God, Astuads, "He who is,"
and appeals to the Hebrew tradition of the Armenian origin of the
human race after the flood. Such theories are impossible when once
we recognize the fact, established in the previous article, that knowl-
edge of Yahweh first came to Israel through Moses. There is no way
in which Moses could have come in contact with any form of Indo-
European civilization and have derived from it a name for God.
These views call for no extended treatment, since they play no part
in recent discussions.

III. The Babylonian theory of the origin of Yahweh has lately
gained an unexpected importance through the famous " Babel-Bibel "
controversy. It is still unsettled whether the name Yahweh really
occurs in Babylonian inscriptions. If, however, it is found, it does
not indicate that this name was borrowed by the Hebrews directly

3 Die Genesis historisch-kritisch erldutert (1885), p. ciii.

4 Biblische Theologie, p. 672.

5 Die Semiten in ihrern Verhaltniss zu Chamiten und Japhetiten, pp. 1 73 f .

6 Vorlesungen iiber Biblische Theologie, p. 38.

n6 THE BIBLICAL WORLD

from Babylonia, but only that it was known in that group of Semitic
peoples to which the first dynasty of Babylon belonged. If the name
Yahweh came to Israel in the Mosaic age, as all our Old Testament
evidence indicates, then a direct borrowing from Babylonia is impos-
sible, for Babylonian influence was at a low ebb at that time. The
name must first have come to some other race with which the Hebrews
stood in closer contact than with Babylon, and from it have passed
on to them. Our problem at present concerns this nearer race. If
we can find out from whom the Hebrews learned the name Yahweh
then it will be time to inquire from what source their teachers
derived it.

IV. The Egyptian theory. — The conviction that Israel learned
the name Yahweh in the time of Moses, has led Voltaire, Schiller,
Roth, Twesten, Brugsch, Noldeke, Steindorff, and many others to
seek an Egyptian origin for the name. Emphasis is laid upon the
expression 'nwk pw 'nwk, "I am I," used by the gods in Egyptian
texts. The attempt is made to show that institutions of the Hebrew
religion have Egyptian parallels, and it is argued that nothing is
more natural than that Moses should have made use of the secret
ideas of the Egyptian priests.

In reply it is pointed out that the phrase 'nwk pw 'nwk serves
merely to introduce a title of the god in question (e. g., "It is I who
know the ways of Nu "), and consequently has nothing in common
with Yahweh, "He will be." Supposed resemblances between
Hebrew and Egyptian rites on closer examination turn out to be
imaginary; and the lofty secret religion of the Egyptian priests
described by Greek writers vanishes into thin air when the hiero-
glyphics are read. Hebrew tradition uniformly regards the exodus
as a conflict against the gods of Egypt ; and it is inconceivable that
after these gods had shown themselves to be powerless to help their
own people, the Israelites should have adopted one of them as their
own national god. For these reasons the Egyptian theory of
Yahweh-worship has been abandoned by all recent Old Testament
scholars.

V. The Kenite theory. — The hypothesis that the worship of Yah-
weh was learned by Moses from the Kenites or Midianites, among
whom he dwelt after his flight from Egypt, was first suggested by

THE ORIGIN OF YAHWEH-WORSHIP IN ISRAEL 117

Ghillany, writing under the pseudonym of Von der Aim. 7 It has
found the support of Tiele, 8 Stade,° Von Gall, 10 Budde," Guthe, 12
Cheyne, 13 H. P. Smith, 14 and other recent writers. The arguments
that are urged in support of this view are as follows :

1. The connection of Yahweh with Sinai, that we have already
considered so fully, suggests that he was the God of the people who
dwelt at Sinai. Apparently he was worshiped there long before the
arrival of Israel. A priest of Midian was stationed there, according
to Exod. 2 : 16 (J), and Exod. 3 : 1 (cf. 18:1,12 f.) (E). The god whom
he served can only have been Yahweh, whom a unanimous and
persistent tradition associates with Sinai. Horeb was already the
" mountain of God," according to Exod. 3 : 1 (E), before Moses received
there his revelation. In 3:12 (E) Yahweh says: "When thou hast
brought forth the children of Israel out of Egypt, ye shall serve God
upon this mountain." This implies that Horeb is a sanctuary where
the worship of Yahweh is already established. In 19:10 (E) the
people on arriving at Horeb sanctify themselves and wash their
clothes, as men were accustomed to do when visiting a holy place.
In 3 : 5 (J) Sinai is holy ground even before any revelation is made
to Moses. In 3: 18 (J) the people ask that they may go three days'
journey into the wilderness in order that they may sacrifice to Yahweh.
In 19:4 (J) Yahweh says, when Israel arrives at Sinai: "I have
brought you to myself." Such statements are inconsistent with the
theory that Sinai first became a sanctuary of Yahweh in consequence
of the revelation of Moses; they show that it was already a holy
place in pre-Mosaic times. But, as we have seen, Israel did not
worship Yahweh before the exodus, and there is no tradition con-
necting it with Sinai before the time of Moses ; consequently, Yahweh
must have been the God of the people inhabiting Mount Sinai before
the arrival of Israel.

7 Theologische Brieje an den GebUdeten der deulschen Nation (1862), Vol. I,
pp. 216, 480.

8 Vergelijkende Geschied. van de Egypt, en Mesopot. Godsdiensten (1882), p. 559.

9 Geschichte des Volkes Israel, Vol. I, pp. 130 f.

10 Altisraelitische Kultstdtten (1898), p. 17.

11 Religion of Israel to the Exile, chap. 1.

" Geschichte des Volkes Israel (1899), pp. 21, 29.
1 3 Encyclopedia Biblica, art. "Moses."
** Old Testament History (1903), p. 57.

n8 THE BIBLICAL WORLD

The land to which Moses fled from Egypt is called Midian by J
in Exod. 2:15 f.; 4:19, and in Numb. 10:29 (J) Moses' father-in-law
is called Hobab ben Reuel the Midianite; but in Judg. 1:16 (J) we
read: "And the children of ... . Kenite, Moses' father-in-law,
went up from the city of palm trees with the children of Judah."
In the light of Judg. 4:11 this verse should probably be amended to
read: "And Hobab the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, went up from
the city of palm trees with the children of Judah." In two E passages
(Exod. 3:1 and 18:1) Moses' father-in-law is called "the priest of
Midian;" but this phrase is open to the suspicion of being a gloss
designed to conform E to J. It appears thus that there was a double
Judean tradition in regard to the race to which Moses' father-in-law
belonged : according to one he was a Midianite, according to another
he was a Kenite. It is generally admitted that the latter conception
is more correct. The Kenites, as we shall see presently, were closely
connected with Israel and shared its religion throughout its history,
while Midian had no relation except that of hostility. The Midianite
tradition may be due, as Stade and Budde think, to the fact that
the Kenites were a branch of the Midianites, or Midian may be
simply a geographical designation derived from the later inhabitants of
the region of Sinai. Cheyne 15 cuts the knot by assuming that Midian
is a textual corruption of Mutsri, or North Arabia. The connection
of the Kenites with Amalek in 1 Sam. 15:6; Gen. 36: 10, 13; Numb.
24:20 f. does not necessarily prove they belonged to the Amalekites,
but only that they settled among the Amalekites in consequence of
their migration from Sinai. There is no insurmountable difficulty
in accepting the view of the J school of historians that the Kenites
belonged to the Midianite stock. The Kenite Midianites, accord-
ingly, were the people who at the time of the Exodus were in posses-
sion of the sanctuary of Sinai. Since Yahweh was the God of Sinai,
they must have been worshipers of him before Israel came to know
him.

2. Moses' connection with the family of the priest of Midian
makes it probable that he learned the worship of Yahweh from the
Kenites. According to J (Exod. 2:15-22) Moses, fleeing from Egypt,
was hospitably received by Reuel, the priest of Midian, who gave

'5 Encyclopaedia Biblica, col. 2658.

THE ORIGIN OF YAHWEH-WORSHIP IN ISRAEL 119

him his daughter in marriage. In Numb. 10: 29 Moses' father-in-law
appears as Hobab son of Reuel, the Midianite; and in Judg. 4:11
(cf. 1 : 16) as Hobab, the Kenite. On the strength of these two pas-
sages it is commonly supposed that Hobab son of Reuel is the correct
text of Exod. 2 : 18, or that Reuel is a gloss. In E Moses' father-in-law
is always called Jethro (cf. Exod. 3:1; 4:18; 18:1 ff.). It is impos-
sible to harmonize these traditions and equally impossible to decide
between them. It should be noted, however, that although the
documents do not agree as to the name of Moses' father-in-law,
they both agree that he was a priest at Horeb-Sinai (J in Exod. 2 : 16,
E in Exod. 18:12). If Moses, a fugitive from Egypt, came to live
with the priest of the Kenites and married his daughter, he would
naturally adopt the religion of this father-in-law. This was the rule
of Semitic antiquity. The "sojourner" was always expected to
worship the god of the place where he lived, and in early times a
matriarchal exogamous constitution of the clan demanded that a
man should adopt his wife's religion. That this happened in Moses'
case is implied in the story of Exod. 4:24-26 (J). Here Moses has
neglected the rite of circumcision, which is the badge of a worshiper
of Yahweh, and Yahweh seeks to slay him ; but Zipporah, who knows
what is required, takes a flint and fulfils the rite upon her son, and
then the divine wrath is appeased. Even if these stories of Moses'
relation to the priest of Midian and to his daughter be not taken as
literal history, they still indicate a consciousness on Israel's part
that Moses' priesthood was derived from the older priesthood.

3. In the Elohistic narrative of Exod. 18, Jethro, Moses' father-in-
law, appears as a priest of Yahweh, who initiates the elders of Israel
into his religion. If, as some hold, vss. 9, 10 came from J, then
we have an additional witness that Yahweh was the god of Jethro.
In 18:8-10 Moses tells Jethro all that Yahweh has done for Israel
in Egypt; and Jethro says : " Blessed be Yahweh, who hath delivered

you out of the hands of the Egyptians Now I know that

Yahweh is greater than all gods." Here is no suggestion that Jethro
is recognizing Yahweh, the God of Israel, as greater than his own
god. On the contrary, this is an expression of joy that his ancestral
god, Yahweh, has proved himself so powerful. In vs. 12 Jethro
takes a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, and Aaron and all the

120 THE BIBLICAL WORLD

elders of Israel eat bread with him before God. This is not the act of
a man who is converted to the religion of Israel. In that case Moses
would have offered the sacrifice and have invited Jethro to partake
of it. Jethro himself here offers the sacrifice, because he is the priest
of Yahweh who initiates the elders of Israel into his religion. Moses
is not present at the meal because he has already previously received
initiation as a member of Jethro's family. Kautzsch's suggestion 16
that Jethro offers the sacrifice simply because he is the host fails to do
justice to the facts, that Jethro is a priest, and that Sinai is the dwelling-
place of Yahweh. In vss. 13-26 Jethro observes that Moses is over-
burdened with judicial cases that are laid before him, and suggests
that the decision of the less important matters be placed in the hands
of the tribal elders. Here again the origin of one of the most char-
acteristic features of the religious constitution of Israel is traced back
to the priest of Midian. Throughout the whole of this chapter,
accordingly, it is clear that Jethro does not adopt the religion of
Israel, but that Israel adopts the religion of Jethro, when it arrives
at Sinai, the holy mountain of Yahweh, the god of the Kenites.

4. The Kenites were attached to Israel from the time of the Exodus
onward in such a way as to show that they were adherents of the
religion of Yahweh. In Numb. 11:29-32 (J) we are told:

And Moses said unto Hobab the son of Reuel, the Midianite, Moses' father-
in-law, We are journeying unto the place of which Yahweh said, I will give it
you: come thou with us, and we will do thee good: for Yahweh hath spoken
good concerning Israel. And he said, I will not go, but I will depart unto mine
own land and unto my kindred, and he said, Leave us not, I pray thee, forasmuch
as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou shalt be
unto us instead of our eyes. And it shall be, if thou wilt go with us, it shall
be, that what good soever Yahweh shall do unto us, the same will we do unto
thee.

This must have been followed in the original form of the J narrative by
an account of how Hobab yielded to Moses' persuasion, for in Judg.
1 : 16 (J) we read : "And Hobab the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law,
went up from the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into
the wilderness of Judah, which is in the Negeb of Arad; and they
went and dwelt with the Amalekites" (emended text, cf. Judg. 4:11).
Further traces of the Kenites in Judah are found in the names
16 Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. V, p. 627.

THE ORIGIN OF YAHW EH -WORSHIP IN ISRAEL 121

Kinah and Kain (Josh. 15:22, 57); Kenites are found among the
northern tribes in Judg. 4:11 and 5:14. Heber the Kenite is the
friend of Israel, and Jael his wife is the slayer of Sisera, the oppressor
of Israel (Judg. 4-5). The Kenites remained nomads (cf. Judg. 5 : 24),
so that they made no permanent settlements with the Israelites.
The bulk of the race continued to dwell among the Amalekites in
the desert south of Judah. In 1 Sam. 15:5-7 it is narrated:

And Saul came to the city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley. And
Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites,
lest I destroy you with them: for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel,
when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the
Amalekites. And Saul smote the Amalekites.

The connection of the Kenites with the Amalekites is also asserted in
Gen. 36:10,12; Numb. 24:20. In 1 Sam. 27:10 Davidspeaks of the
Kenites as though they were a people confederate with Israel and hos-
tile to the Philistines, and in 30 : 29 he sends presents to them of the
spoil of Ziklag, as to the villages of Judah. These passages show that
the Kenites were regarded by the Israelites as brothers, that they
had the freedom of the land to wander about with their flocks, and
that they sided with Israel on all matters of national interest. Such
a relation was possible in antiquity only on the basis of a common
religion. The Kenites must have been worshipers of Yahweh or
they could never been such close allies of the Hebrews. If Yahweh
had been a new god whom the Kenites had adopted during Israel's
residence at Sinai, it is not likely that they would have long retained
his cult after they were left to themselves in the desert. The tena-
city with which they clung to him, even when they were separated
from Israel, shows that he must have been their ancestral god.

5. The Kenites appear in the Old Testament as representatives
of the pure original Yahweh religion. According to 1 Chron. 2:55
the Rechabites were a clan of the Kenites. There is no reason to
doubt this statement, since the Rechabites showed the same per-
sistent attachment to a nomadic life in the midst of civilization that
was characteristic of the Kenites. In 2 Kings 10: 15-28 Jehu, setting
out to purge Israel of the worship of the Tyrian Baal, falls in with
Jehonadab the son of Rechab and recognizes in him a natural ally.
" Come with me," he says, " and see my zeal for Yahweh." Together

122 THE BIBLICAL WORLD

they carry out the work of restoring the ancient religion of Yahweh.
In Jer. 35 certain nomadic Rechabites take refuge in Jerusalem at
the time of Nebuchadrezzar's invasion, and Jeremiah uses them as
an illustration of fidelity to the good old ways of Yahweh. He sets
bowls of wine before them and invites them to drink; but they say:

We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded
us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons, forever: neither
shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any: but all
your days ye shall dwell in tents; that ye may live many days in the land wherein
ye sojourn.

For this they are praised by the prophet and are promised a special
blessing from Yahweh (vs. 19). It is clear that the Rechabites in
their nomadic life had preserved the ways of Yahweh better than
the Israelites had done. Houses, fields, vineyards, and the drinking
of wine were connected with the Baalim of Canaan. A return to
Yahweh was a return to the simpler life of the Kenites. In their
wanderings through the land they were a constant reminder of what
the religion of Yahweh had been before it was mixed with the reli-
gion of the Canaanites. The prophet's ideal of the messianic age
is a restoration of just this sort of life, and it is not unlikely that
prophetism owed much of its zeal for Yahweh in antithesis to the
Baalim of Canaan to Kenite influence. This primitive quality of
the Kenite faith can hardly be explained except by recognizing that
Yahweh was originally the god of this people. As the first adherents
of his religion they had the right to assume continually the r61e of
teacher that was assumed at Sinai by Jethro.

The opinion that the story of Cain in Gen. 4 refers to the eponym
ancestor of the Kenites has found favor with a number of recent
critics. 17 The name Cain (Qayin) is the same as the gentilic name
Qayin (the Kenites) in Numb. 24:22; Judg. 4:11; Josh. 15:57. In
Hebrew the name of a race, Israel, Edom, Moab, etc., is always
singular, and is identical with the name of its real or assumed father,
so that statements may apply indiscriminately to it or to its father.
Cain is an exile from the fertile land and is a wanderer in the desert.
This corresponds to the Kenites, whom Israel knew as nomads for-

" See particularly Stade, "Das Kainszeichen," Zeitschrijt jur Alttestamentliche
Wissenschajl, 1894, p. 250.

THE ORIGIN OF YAHWEH-WORSHIP IN ISRAEL 123

bidden to make permanent settlements. The Israelitish peasant
regarded the nomadic life as a curse; and the only way in which
he could explain it was by the assumption that the ancestor of the
Kenites had killed his brother, and in punishment had been driven
out of Canaan. As an exile, he had no access to the sanctuaries of
Yahweh, where the manslayer was safe from the avenger of blood;
but in compensation for this loss Yahweh had put a mark upon him
which protected him from harm. This can only mean that the
Kenites wore on their bodies some sign which designated them as
Yahweh-worshipers and protected them from harm when they came
into contact with the Israelites. Tattooed svmbols of racial or reli-
gious brotherhood were common in antiquity, and we are probably
to think of a mark on the hand or the forehead as the badge of the
Kenites. When this mark is traced back to Cain, the father of the
race, it indicates the belief that from time immemorial the Kenites
had been worshipers of Yahweh. The mark of Yahweh had been
on their foreheads as long as Israel had known anything about them,
and they themselves could give no other account of it than that their
first father had received it and that they had always worn it. This
evidence, accordingly, so far as it goes, points in the same direction
as that already cited, namely, that Yahweh was the ancestral god of
the Kenites.

6. The Kenite theory of the origin of Yahweh- worship explains
most easily the tradition of J in regard to the antiquity of the name
Yahweh. According to Judg. 1 : 16, the Kenites entered Canaan with
the tribe of Judah, and traces of their presence in Judah are found
in the names Kinah and Kain (Josh. 15:22, 57). Even those who did
not remain in Judah wandered on the southern border where they
came into frequent contact with the Judeans. Under these conditions
Kenite ideas must have left a considerable impress upon Judean
traditions. During the period of the Judges, Judah had little in
common with the other tribes (it is not even mentioned in the Song
of Deborah), and it must have been correspondingly open to Kenite
influence. The Kenites knew Yahweh as a God whom their fathers
had worshiped from time immemorial. As they mingled with Judah,
the idea would naturally be transferred to the Judeans that Yahweh
had also been their ancestral God. This belief finds expression in

124 THE BIBLICAL WORLD

J, the Judean document, which traces back the worship of Yahweh
to Enosh, the grandson of Adam. The northern tribes, that were less
exposed to Kenite influence, retained the truer tradition found in E,
that Yahweh had first become the god of Israel at the time of the
exodus.

7. The Kenite theory best explains the ethical character of the
religion of Israel. It is generally admitted that the most marked
peculiarity of the Old Testament religion is its high ethical quality.
Other ancient Semitic religions have had ethical elements; but they
have attached the main importance to formal acts of worship and
have shown no capacity for development. The religion of Israel,
on the contrary, although in its early stages similar to other Semitic
religions, has possessed an extraordinary power of ethical growth.
In the earliest historical records Yahweh already appears as the
champion of righteousness and the friend of the oppressed. In the
Book of the Covenant, as given by J in Exod. 34, and in a longer form
by E in Exod. 21-23, right treatment of the fellow-Israelite is more
conspicuous than ritual. In the great literary prophets from Amos
to Jeremiah ritual is rejected as worthless in the sight of Yahweh,
and righteousness is held up as his sole requirement. In Deuteron-
omy the ethical teaching of the prophets is made a part of the common
religion of the nation. Even the great ritualistic reaction that finds
expression in Ezekiel, the Priestly Code, and other post-exilic writings
is unable to kill the ethical spirit that breaks forth in the Psalter.

Historians are agreed that the germ of this extraordinary ethical
development must be sought at the beginning of the religion, but
they are not agreed what that germ was. The traditional view that
Moses gave Israel the Pentateuch, and that out of this the later
ethical religion was developed, is untenable, because we now know that
the Pentateuch is a compilation of writings of many different ages,
and that few, if any, of these go back to the time of Moses. If Moses
wrote the Pentateuch, there was no growth in the religion of Israel,
but it sprung into existence in a completed form. The view of Kuenen,
Wellhausen, and many critics of the modern school is that the ethical
conception of Yahweh grew out of his judicial function. The earliest
documents agree that there was an oracle of Yahweh at Kadesh,
where decisions were given in cases of dispute between tribes and

THE ORIGIN OF YAHWEH-WORSHIP IN ISRAEL 125

between individuals. From the idea of Yahweh, the dispenser of
justice, to that of Yahweh, the guardian of righteousness, the step,
it is said, is short. Such oracles, however, were found among all
Semitic peoples, and their decisions concerned law rather than
morality, so that they furnish no true starting-point for the peculiar
ethical development in Israel. Other historians have sought the
germ of the ethical quality of the Old Testament religion in a new
conception of God gained by Moses. This view is correct so far as
it goes, but it does not solve the problem, for the question still remains :
How did Moses come to hold this new conception ? New ideas come
only on the basis of experience; revelations rest upon the founda-
tion of facts in history. We are compelled, therefore, to inquire:
What was there in the experience of Moses and of Israel that
tended to awaken belief in the ethical character of Yahweh ?

The answer to this question is found in the peculiar relation of
Yahweh to Israel. He was not the ancestral God of Israel, but of
the Kenites. Israel was not bound to him by natural kinship, as
other Semitic peoples were bound to their gods. It had no claim
on him as on a tutelary deity, and had no reason to expect that he
would do anything for it. Yet he took pity upon its sufferings in
Egypt and determined to deliver it. All the documents of the Hexa-
teuch agree that the main point of Yahweh's revelation to Moses
at Sinai was the commission to bring Israel up out of Egypt. The
God who thus had compassion upon the oppressed, and who came
to their rescue even though they did not worship him, was evidently
a God possessed of a moral character. He redeemed Israel, not
because of kinship, or because it was for his interest to do so, but
because of his love of righteousness. This was a new thing in the
history of religion, and it could not fail to be fraught with far-reaching
consequences.

Yahweh's demands of Israel correspond to his moral character.
Since he has chosen Israel to be his people, he asks that it shall
choose him to be its God. It is not to worship him because it has
always worshiped him and cannot do differently, but because it
recognizes him to be worthy of worship. Its relation to him is not
necessary, like that of a son to a father, but voluntary, like that of
a wife to a husband. This is the thought of the covenant that under-

126 THE BIBLICAL WORLD

lies the whole Hebrew religion. Moreover, since Yahweh has shown
himself gracious toward the helpless and the oppressed, it is natural
to think that he will be pleased when men show a similar gracious-
ness to their fellows. Thus the two leading ethical characteristics
of the Old Testament religion, devotion to Yahweh and kindness
toward the helpless, are seen to be inferences from the fact that
Yahweh, the God of the Kenites, had pity upon an alien people. "I
have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods beside me " (Exod. 20 : 2 f .).
"An alien shalt thou not wrong, neither shalt thou oppress him,
for ye were aliens in the land of Egypt" (Exod. 22:21).

Not only was the moral impulse awakened by the thought of
Yahweh's free choice, but it was strengthened by the consciousness
that his choice could be withdrawn. If he had been a tutelary deity
of the ordinary Semitic type, he could not have given up his wor-
shipers any more than they could have given him up; but, since
his relation to Israel was free, he could terminate it at any moment.
The common people in the days of Amos had come to think of him
in the same way in which other Semites thought of their gods. Their
motto was "Yahweh is with us" (Amos 5:14), and they were sure
that he was bound to defend them regardless of their moral char-
acter; but the choicer spirits of the nation knew that his relation
to Israel was not indissoluble. If the wife proved unfaithful, he
could put her away. This thought of a possible loss of Yahweh's
favor was always present, and it explains in large measure the intense
moral earnestness of the prophets of Israel. We see, accordingly,
that the ethical characteristics of the Old Testament religion find
a satisfactory explanation when once we recognize that Yahweh was
not an ancestral god of the ordinary Semitic type, but the God of
the Kenites who chose Israel and whom Israel chose. As Budde
has forcibly expressed it: "Israel's religion became ethical because
it was a religion of choice and not of nature, because it rested on a
voluntary decision which established an ethical relation between the
people and its god for all time."

These are the reasons for thinking that the worship of Yahweh
was learned by Israel from the Kenites. In view of the weight of
this evidence one is amazed at the statement of Robertson: 18

13 Early Religion of Israel, chap. xi.

THE ORIGIN OF YAHWEH-WORSHIP IN ISRAEL 127

The only shadow of proof that I can find for this view as put forth by Stade
is, that Moses must have borrowed the name of his deity from some one; and
as Jethro was a priest and Moses was in close association with him, the name
was simply carried over, and thus marks the continuation of an older faith.
Of actual proof that this was so we have none; and even if we had we should
simply have to go in search of an older source. No proof is given that Jahveh
was the God of the Kenites, nor is any explanation given why the Hebrews, if
they had no tribal god before, 'should have adopted this deity, or if they had,
why they made this exchange at this particular time.

This is a misrepresentation of the facts. Every point that Robertson
claims as unproved has been established by the advocates of the
Kenite theory, and the evidence is so clear and so ample that one
can scarcely hesitate to regard this view as established.